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10 March 2014

turning 5 with a hi-5 celebration

Although the celebration wasn’t until 3 days after her actual birthday, I couldn’t let her special day pass without doing something for our eldest daughter. So on the morning of the 27th of February, we made a number 5 pancake, prepared a banner, and stuck it on the wall.
And thanks to my co-n@wies for the reminder, I sent all the information needed to E-Junior more than a month earlier, and on her special day, Caila had a nice surprise when she saw this on our television screen:
She was so, so happy! Unfortunately, I didn’t get to take a picture or video of her face when she saw the greeting, but I could see it really made her day. Even until now, she likes to look at that greeting on Tisay, and show it off to our friends.

That night, our family celebrated with dinner at Texas Roadhouse, along with my sister and Gabe. However, when the servers came to sing her Happy Birthday, Caila just wouldn’t cooperate…because her birthday party is on Sunday pa. She didn’t want her picture taken either. Haaaay! Kids! Go figure!

Sunday finally arrived on the 2nd of March and this was the day that she was looking forward to. As expected, I had been the busy one preparing for that day. Since there are absolutely no Hi-5 themed stuff anywhere in Dubai, I had to make-do with whatever I could find (again…for the second year in a row).

I designed and printed the toppers for the cupcakes almost a month in advance, and whenever I had the free time, I would cut them out and stick them on toothpicks.
Hi-5 cupcake toppers
I had also downloaded song videos of Hi-5 episodes from Youtube, and burned these on CDs for each of the kids’ goodybags. Except for the candies and jellies which we bought the day before, the non-edible stuff and paper goodybags were bought a week earlier from Party Centre, Day to Day, and Daiso.
As for the cupcakes, I made them as soon as we finished having dinner on Saturday night. The little girl wanted vanilla Oreo cupcakes for her classmates, and since it was her birthday after all, that’s what I baked…with cookies and cream frosting…all from scratch. Whew!


one of the extra cupcakes for our consumption
The only thing that I didn’t prepare was the cake. I left that to the expert. When I showed Caila pictures of several Hi-5 cakes that I got from the internet, she sat down with me and explained what she wanted her cake to look like.  After sending the draft and exchanging several messages on Facebook, Tita Rina made the perfect cake for our girl

vanilla flavoured with chocolate ganache filling
all-edible...even JupJup and the Hi-5 logo!
That morning, our little girl wore one of her pink dresses. She told us that whenever her classmates would celebrate their birthdays at school, they were allowed to wear something else instead of their usual uniforms. So that’s what she did. She rode on the bus, excitedly looking forward to her celebration later.

By 9:30am, all of us (Hubby, me, Sophie, and Jovy) headed to the school, and at 9:55am, we were setting up everything in front of the kids in the classroom. It just so happened that almost all of them liked Hi-5, plus the program had just returned on E-Junior a few days ago, so they really appreciated the cake and cupcakes.
the celebrant with her Hi-5 cupcakes and cake
As they began singing Happy Birthday, Caila started cutting the cake. She just put the knife in the cake, then cut, then stuck the knife again in the cake and cut again, over and over. She didn’t or couldn’t wait! Excited lang masyado. After the kids stopped singing, that’s when she stopped cutting to blow the candles.

Right after that, the kids were asked to sit down at their tables while I helped Caila as she handed out the cupcakes to each of them. I’m happy to say the cupcakes were devoured in minutes! The kids and teachers found them really yummy. Hurray!

The entire celebration was over so fast, and before we knew it, it was time for us to pack and leave. We left the goodybags by the door for Caila to give out before they all left later.
family pic
A small celebration, but one that put a big smile on our 5 year old’s face.  All the effort was worth it.

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